Max Payne Film…I wonder if it will suck?
2008 October 14
Live action movies based on video games are 99.99% of the time crap but the upcoming action movie based on the Max Payne series of games is expected to change that. The first good thing that the creators did was sign a well known actor in the starring role (Mark Wahlberg) the second was good promotion and sticking as close as possible to the material the movie is based upon while still adding something unique.
I played, enjoyed and completed the first Max Payne game back in 2002 so the story is somewhat familiar to me. I wanted to play but was not drawn to the sequel that came out a few years ago. I am looking forward to the film, at least it looks like a decent enough movie from the trailers. Expect a review later.
I watched this movie in the cinema last weekend and it’s ‘okay’. It’s not horrible like an Uwe Boll movie or Doom, but it’s certainly not good either.
The story takes a few plot points from the game, but overall is presented very differently (e.g.: the mob doesn’t even make an appearance in the movie, whereas you spent 90% of the game killing mobsters). That’s not bad necessarily, but the way this director decided to present the movie just doesn’t work.
It ends up being more of a drama movie than an action movie – and that’s just not Max Payne. There are only short bouts of action here and there, but overall the movie is very dull – apart from the final 15 minutes. If the rest of the movie had been more like those final 15 minutes, or the bathroom scene in the beginning of the movie, then it could’ve been quite a good watch. Unfortunately, it isn’t.